A thesaurus will tell you that “road” and “street” are synonyms. This is more evidence that synonyms are an imaginary creature dreamed up by people certain that denotation matters more than connotation. If you want to know the difference between a street and a road, go get three or four Tom Waits albums, it doesn’t matter which, and pay attention to when he sings about streets and when he sings about roads. Tom’ll explain it for you.

Or just go through these song titles and substitute in “street” for “road” and consider how it changes them. The King of the Street is a very different person from the King of the Road. Lonesome Road sounds like a journey while Lonesome Street sounds like a location — same with the Road/Street of the Righteous. Crossroad Blues is a life-changing turning point while Cross-street Blues sounds more like a traffic problem. And Hit the Street to Dreamland just sounds vaguely disreputable. I somehow lack the Willie Nelson classic, but On the Road Again is a very different sentiment than On the Street Again.

Or consider what just might maybe be, sometimes, my favorite song: Thunder Street just would not do. Nor would it be quite the same if Mary were to waste her summer praying in vain for a savior to rise from these roads.

Bless the Broken Road – Rascal FlattsGolden Road – the long instrumental piece that used to be played while they showed the winning team cut the baskets down after the NCAA Basketball Championship before playing One Shining Moment

glendanowakowsk

Dust Down a Country Road – John Hiatt This wouldn’t work on a street either.

http://www.nightphoenix.com Amaranth

Interesting that I only have two songs in my collection with “street” in the title, and a good dozen or so with “road”. And probably a quarter of those come from various movie soundtracks.

Road to Perdition is a grim movie with a gorgeous soundtrack that I highly recommend. And yeah, Street to Perdition would just sound silly.

thatotherjean

Hit the Road, Jack – Ray Charles

The Long and Winding Road – The Beatles

Neither would work well as “street.”

http://loosviews.livejournal.com BringTheNoise

I’ve now completed ripping all my music onto this PC, so let’s see how long this list will be:

End Of The Road – Boyz II Men Further On (Up The Road) – Johnny Cash Good To Be On The Road Back Home Again – Cornershop Goodbye Yellow Brick Road – Elton John Goodbye Yellow Brick Road – Keane Hit The Road Jack – Ray Charles (I’m A) Road Runner – Junior Walker & The All-Stars I Love Rocky Road – “Weird” Al Yankovic Jericho Road – Steve Earle King Of The Road – The Proclaimers Long Road – Pearl Jam Long Road To Ruin – Foo Fighters Middle Of The Road – The Pretenders Mississippi KKKrossroads – Chris Thomas King On The Road Again – Bob Dylan On The Road Again – Canned Heat

And I’ll be seeing Abney Park in two weeks when they return to the middle of absolutely nowhere for their second show here in two years.

http://www.blogger.com/home?pli=1 Coleslaw

My English teachers from middle school on taught that no two words in the English language are truly synonymous, something that had really been brought home by listening to my foreign exchange students in their struggles translating their thoughts into English.

Synonyms are actually words with the same or very close meaning, precisely for the reason Fred mentions. Lots of linguists would agree that ‘same’ shouldn’t even be part of the definition.

http://twitter.com/AbelUndercity Abel Undercity

This Dark and Twisted Road – Abney Park (high fives connorboone)

Hm. That seems to be it. Guess I need to buy more music. Oh well… ;-)

http://dpolicar.livejournal.com/ Dave

no two words in the English language are truly synonymous, something that had really been brought home by listening to my foreign exchange students

At one point in my well-spent youth (a period of my life that mysteriously covers more territory the older I get) I was a volunteer ESL teacher, and I would encourage my students to bring me words or phrases they’d run into that day they were puzzled by.

So one student asked me what was the difference between “stick” and “staff,” and I explained the connotations… and mentioned, in passing, that “staff” also described a group of people who worked together, like the staff of a company. A little later, someone asked me what the difference between “staff” and “club” was, and I started in on that, and explained that they were not-quite-synonyms in both meanings, which my class thought was delightfully perverse.

redsixwing

“Road to Nowhere,” Talking Heads.

Dave, I like that about “staff” and “club.”

http://www.facebook.com/jon.maki Jon Maki

A Hard Road – Black Sabbath Till We Run Out of Road – Jewel The Killing Road – Megadeth We Came Along This Road – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Road To Nowhere – Ozzy Osbourne Roads To Madness – Queensrÿche

Jim Roberts

Whether this is accurate or not, it’s my perception that English has more synonyms than most other languages, probably because it is so very, very willing to steal vocabulary from any langauge it encounters. Frankly, I blame Shakespeare.

“Winding Road” – Bonnie Sommerville

(I don’t have many songs on my PC at the moment – this must be rectified.)

connorboone

Thanks for the high-five.

I actually took second in the costume contest they had during the break last year. I’m not going as all-in this year, though.

Very Cool! I discovered Abney Park last year looking for good Nanowrimo music. Very cool stuff. If you like them you’ll probably like The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets.

phranckeaufile

Not a song, but I have to say it:

Road House!

Obitwo

“Any Road” by George Harrison.

I mean, come on!

rm

I can’t believe I typed this. Of all of these, the one that jumps out as a great song is “Railroad Wings” by Patty Griffin. And it definitely would not mean the same thing to sing “Why Don’t We Do It in the Street?”

Wait, how do I not have “Hit the Road, Jack” and “Road to Nowhere”? With computerized music I am never sure what I have.

Urquelldude

Red Dirt Road – Brooks & Dunn

http://hummingwolf.livejournal.com/ Hummingwolf

Okay, I have very little music on my computer, so I wasn’t going to try to remember which tracks in my album collection might fit in with this week’s theme. But then it hit me–nobody has mentioned the song “The Long Road” by Eddie Vedder with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, which means that nobody posting has Music from and Inspired by the Motion Picture Dead Man Walking, which means that even Fred Clark does not have Music from and Inspired by the Motion Picture Dead Man Walking, which is a shame.

Seriously, the Dead Man Walking sorta-soundtrack has songs by Bruce Springsteen, Johnny Cash, Suzanne Vega, Lyle Lovett, Tom Waits, Michelle Shocked, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Steve Earle, and Patti Smith, as well as two songs by the duo mentioned above. How does our Slacktihost not have this? How can such things be?

And related to last week’s post: people need the Ralph McTell song “Streets of London” just because it’s a classic. If you can get the live version, go for it.